


After Atlantis

by Pennyplainknits



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, return to earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-17
Updated: 2010-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:26:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennyplainknits/pseuds/Pennyplainknits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney return to earth. Beta by unamaga. Written for countess7</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Atlantis

**(1)**

When Atlantis finally sinks beneath the waves for the last time (crumbling from metal fatigue, of all things), both John and Rodney resign. John can't imagine serving anywhere else, now, but with the Wraith gone and the Replicators no longer a threat there simply isn't the political will to maintain any presence in Pegasus, let alone an expensive and dangerous military one. After seven years, they're going home, or at least, going back to earth.

 

After rounds and rounds of debriefings, hearings and talks (it is, unsurprisingly not as easy for a military commander to resign as it is a chief scientist), they head northwest. Rodney wants to be near to his family, and as John left all his family but Rodney back in Pegasus, he doesn't complain.

 

Their house is tiny, set on a cliff overlooking the ocean and miles from the nearest town. For the first month they tiptoe around the subject of Atlantis, and around each other. They share a bed (John can't even think about sleeping alone anymore), they even fuck, but everything is muted, far away and unreal, as though they too are underwater.

 

**(2)**

"I'm going out," John announces. It's stormy and windy, but he feels that if he stays one more minute in that house something inside him will shatter.

"Huh?" Rodney asks, dully, not looking up from his journal.

"It's, I can't be here," John says, lacing up his runners.

"Are you coming back?" Rodney asks in a monotone, turning the pages without reading.

John explodes, "Jesus Christ, Rodney! Is that what you think of me? It's us now, just us! I'm not abandoning you now!"

Rodney sinks back into his chair; two months ago he'd have shouted, words spilling over to berate and explain, hands waving. It's a mark of how low they both are that he doesn't even raise his voice.

"Of course I'm coming back," John says softly. "But when I come back, like it or not, we _are_ having a conversation."

Rodney looks tired and terrified, so John crosses the room to kiss him softly.

"I'll be back. Promise."

He runs. For a long time. He runs the length of their little beach, sand and gravel dragging at his feet, barely noticing the rain soaking through his coat and hoodie. He runs until his muscles burn and cramp, and his head is clear; until he's let go of the anger he feels- towards the SGC, the IOA, even Rodney, all the people that couldn't save his city - and all that he feels is tired and empty. When he comes back to himself, he finds he's run all the way into town.

He chickens out and gets a cab back. He's not as young as he was, and he tells himself that the donuts he's bought as a peace offering from the tiny bakery wouldn't have survived the rain.

"Hey," he says, stepping into the hall and dripping on the mat. Rodney takes one look at him and-

"Shower. Before you catch your death."

The hot water feels like heaven, thawing him out in tingly pins and needles. The slight disappointment he feels when Rodney doesn't join him dissipates when he brings him a steaming cup of coffee and takes the towel from around John's neck to gently dry his hair.

"I unpacked," Rodney says.

They've both been living out of boxes and duffles, as if to unpack would making it real, prove that they were tied to Earth. Now, as John looks around the room, he sees the bits and pieces of Pegasus they've managed to bring back with them.

The red blanket Teyla gave him when he had the flu the third year. The stone bowl Rodney had won in a game of skill remarkably like Jenga. The loving cup from the tenth planet they'd married on (John has fond memories of the three-day enforced honeymoon, but his left knee has never been the same). Trinkets and doohickies from a dozen worlds. John keeps it together until he sees, in a frame no less, the carefully-drawn picture of the six of them Torren had gravely presented them the day they had finally piled into the Daedalus and left. Suddenly it hits him, really hits him. He's here, he's on earth, and he's never going back.

Rodney holds him through the silent tears, and the shakes that follow, and then strips him, then himself, and slides them both under the sheets in their little bedroom. Rodney puts them back together with whispers and kisses and touches, and when he eases slowly inside John, it's like the sun finally coming out. That night, wrapped up in Rodney, with all the windows open and the waves breaking on the shore, John sleeps the night through for the first time since they left Atlantis.

 

**(3)**

John surprises himself by bringing home the kitten. The bakery cat, a huge calico queen, has had a litter, kittens milling round his feet as the stops for the Saturday post-run donuts. One weaves through his legs, a little silver tabby with bright blue eyes that remind him of Rodney's.

"She likes you," Elsa remarks. "She's the last one I need to find a home for".

John's about to protest that they don't want a cat when the kitten pounces on his feet, worrying the laces of his runners and being almost sickeningly cute.

"Looks like she's chosen you," Elsa laughs, picking her up.

He takes her home in one of the big boxes the bakery uses for wedding cake. The look of joy on Rodney's face when he sees her is worth any number of scratches.

"She's called Jumper," he says as they watch her stalk a clockwork mouse across the kitchen, and Rodney is so besotted with her he doesn't even flinch. Later that night, Rodney curls up in John's arms, and Jumper curls up in Rodney's, and her purrs fill the room as they watch Buckeroo Banzai, and John thinks they can do this, they can be here, it'll be ok.

**(4)**

Jumper rules them with an iron paw, and Rodney in particular is her devoted servent. She'll curl up in her own armchair as Rodney works. John knows the SGC were highly reluctant to let him go, but Rodney hasn't been short of money since his first PhD, and without Atlantis they no longer have anything he wants. He's consulting now, as well as furiously writing articles and applying for patents. Mostly its engineering, adapting ideas and materials from Atlantis to the mainstream, but he's also writing what John knows will be a landmark text on particle physics. John checks his math and mooches around the house, playing with Jumper until one day he finally distracts Rodney enough that he snaps and shoves an advert at him that says 'Flight instructors needed'.

"Go. Make yourself useful," he orders.

"I'm useful here," John protests, but his heart isn't in it. Rodney knows how much he's missed the air.

It's a tiny airfield, about 40 minutes away. The light aircraft and one helicopter are no puddlejumpers, but he's in the air again, back where he belongs. His pupils ranges from kids barely old enough to drive, to one older but still glamorous woman who was an army nurse years back.

"I wanted so badly to fly," she explains their first lesson out, "but my entire family was army, and anyway, women didn't, then."

When she takes the controls for the first time its the closest John's ever been to seeing his own love of flying on someone else's face.

 

**(5)**

John's never entirely sure how they end up with a dog, but he swears it isn't his fault. Rodney comes home from one of his days at the university and tosses him a leather collar and lead.

"Kinky," John says, raising an eyebrow.

Rodney whacks him good naturedly upside the head.

"You know that dog you're always talking about getting?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, the receptionist at the library fosters greyhounds and, well, the kennels are closing and all the dogs will be put to sleep if they don't find homes for them, and well-"

"You said we'd have one?" John finished for him. Rodney's soft spot for animals shouldn't be news to him, but he hadn't expected this. He can work with a greyhound though.

"What about Jumper?" he asks.

"Totally not a problem, he loves cats. And he can go running with you in the mornings!" John sighs, but he's already lost the battle.

The dog when they collect him is gentle and lazy, jet black and all legs and tail. There's just one problem.

"No!" Rodney is adamant.

"It's a great name, short, easy to remember- it'll fit on his tag," John wheedles.

"No, no and, just in case, no again. I will not have our dog named after that _thing_." Rodney crosses his arms and watches the dog flop onto the grass, exhausted. Jumper curls herself up next to him.

"It's better than _Rover_." John says mulishly.

"Forgive me if I don't want to be reminded about whichever college boyfriend you named that thing after everytime I call the dog."

"Hey!" John protests, "I only did that with Todd. Look, it's from his racing name. What else would you call 'Stevedore's Challenger'?"

"You just can't call a dog Steve." But even as Rodney says this the dog pricks his ears up.

"Guess I can," says John. He calls, "Steve!" and the greyhound wags his tail, then rolls onto his back with his legs in the air.

Rodney huffs and folds his arms, but Steve the dog remains.

 

**(6)**

The year turns from spring into sticky summer. John's first pupil gets her pilot's license, and Rodney's articles begin to be published, the journals with their sober covers lining the new bookcase. John paints the kitchen, and the sun porch, and goes running with Steve every morning. Rodney takes 2 weeks off from setting the world of physics to rights and they go on vacation. They've never had a real one, not together. They book into an obnoxiously opulent hotel and for the first 3 days don't even leave the room. They order room service and have slow, leisurely sex as the breeze flutters the drapes at the open windows and the ceiling fans whir. They've never had this- the safety, no threat of discovery, and freedom to do exactly what they want, when they want. Although most everyone who mattered on Atlantis knew, John was still technically breaking the law, and anyway, there was always disaster waiting just round the corner; they couldn't relax too much, couldn't explore.

They do all those stupid, couple-y things. Footsie in restaurants, eating ice cream on the beach holding hands, good natured bickering about what to see next. It's been a long time since the only thing either of them have to worry about is whether to have brownies or pie for dessert. Their last night Rodney takes him stargazing in the roof garden of their penthouse suite, and points in the direction of Pegasus.

"Do you think they're ok?" John asks, his face tucked into the side of Rodney's neck. He knows the Athosians can look after themselves, that without the Wraith they've as good a chance as anybody, that Ronon is tough, and Teyla tougher, but he needs to hear it from someone else.

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Really?"

"I believe it. I have to, you know?"

John does know, so he tightens his grip on Rodney and listens to him talk of nebulae and supernovae, sketching the constellations of the galaxy they once both called home.

 

**(7)**

Two years After Atlantis, Colonel Lorne arrives on their doorstep.

Lorne wipes his feet, admires the sea view, and makes a complete fool of himself rolling round on the floor with Steve, wrestling for his squeaky ball. Rodney cooks (it's his turn) and they eat, trading gossip about who's new at the SGC, John's pupils, Rodney's idiot grad students. Jumper begs for scraps and John, as always, gives in. They've moved from the kitchen to the lounge, Lorne in the recliner, John sitting with his feet tucked under Rodney's thighs, when Rodney finally snaps and says, "Not that it's not a pleasure to see you Evan, but you didn't just drop by from Colorado. What do you want?"

Lorne takes a drag of his beer and looks straight at them.

"They've given me the _Echo_."

"The what?" John asks, confused.

"The ship I was telling you about," Rodney reminds him. John can feel the tension rising in him, and he slips a hand on his thigh, stroking lightly to calm him.

He remembers, now. Rodney's stayed in touch with most of his ex-colleagues, especially now Miko's heading up Area 51. The _Echo_, the first ship to seamlessly integrate Asgard, Ancient and Tok'ra technology, with a control chair at its heart. With a sinking feeling he realizes what's coming.

"The new Ancient-based ship?" he clarifies.

"Yeah. She's beautiful, John, sleek, fast, responsive. But." Lorne stops, trailing off, then starts again. "But she'd be even more responsive for you. Both of you."

"But you've got the command..." Rodney sounds confused.

"You know the SGC. If it can make a bigger bang... They think you and John can get more out of the interface. It was-strongly suggested that I get you two on board." Lorne at least has the grace to look uncomfortable.

"For Pegasus?" John asks, half in hope, half in fear. Rodney peels his hand off his thigh and weaves their fingers together, gripping hard.  
Lorne shakes his head slowly, awkwardly.

"No. Not in the foreseeable future. Just for tours around our system. But, maybe in a few years..."

He dangles out the possibility like catnip. John can't blame him. He's had his share of 'strong suggestions' from the brass, but it still annoys him that after 2 years and the mother of all break ups the SGC thinks they can just snap their fingers and get him back.

Rodney looks at him, understanding in his blue eyes, and says quietly: "I've got projects and work to last the rest of my life. But I know you miss, we both miss, if you want-"

For a fleeting second, John considers it. Then he thinks about their little home, with its winds and waves. He thinks about the little Cessna at the airfield that's almost his, about the unexpected joy of teaching. He thinks of Steve, poetry across the sand, and of Jumper, a silver ball of mischief. He thinks of Christmas with Jeannie and Kaleb and Maddie and the new baby. He thinks of Sunday pancakes, lazy weekends, just the two of them, wrapped around each other, sticky and sweaty and sated. He thinks of the life they're making here, on this scrap of earth, and really, its no question at all.

"Nah," he says, kissing Rodney sweetly, "I've got everything I want right here."

 

**End**


End file.
